Want your workplace writing to make a positive impression? At the end of this course, you will be a more confident writer, able to create higher quality professional documents more quickly.
This course is at the introductory or beginner level and focuses on mastering the basics of email etiquette and communication. While this course will help learners become faster and more efficient writers by virtue of practice with common writing purposes, it does not cover marketing emails or job application materials.
In this project-based learning course, you will work on a continuous project, the writing of a professional email/memo. At the end of the course, you will write a clear and concise email/memo. The final product will be individualized to your professional endeavors and follow the guidelines for one of the common types of emails/memos explained in the course: directives, progress reports, incident reports, response to inquiries, and meeting minutes. You will gain a wealth of skills. You will learn about appropriate email/memo formats, common ways to organize email/memo contents, common email/memo routing protocols, and expectations upon writers in professional environments.
This course is designed to be beneficial to all levels of learners, whether you have never heard of an email/memo or write them every day. Everyone will learn something from this experience. In fact, different levels of learners are encouraged in this course so that we can all learn from each other. There will be thousands of learners working side-by-side on their projects, and the environment will be social, supportive, and constructive.
By the end of this course, learners will be able to:
- write clear and concise emails/memos relative to their professional endeavors
- recognize five different types of emails/memos and their formats
- analyze email/memo context for audience and tone
- use basic grammar correctly in their email/memo writing
Materials required:
Learners in this course will need only a computer with strong enough Internet to play videos and hear sound. A word processing software is suggested, but not required.
Time required:
This course will require approximately 4 hours of work in the platform, including videos, reading, quizzes, and other activities.
The course project will require approximately 6 hours of work, including the rough draft, draft peer review, final draft, and final peer review.

MA

Thank you for this great course. It has helped me a lot especially with the rubrics and the helpfu; comments of my peers.

MI

Oct 24, 2016

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

Course content is amazing. It covers all basic rules for professional emails. All videos are self explanatory.

From the lesson

Five Types of Emails/Memos

In this module you will learn about five different types of emails/memos and their formats. You will also practice evaluating bad emails/memos to get acquainted with the course rubric, and you will see examples of good emails/memos.

Taught By

Tamara Michele Powell

Director, College of Humanities and Social Sciences Office of Distance Education

Tiffani Kristine Reardon

Instructional Designer

Transcript

Directives You send out emails and memos for a variety of
reasons—usually to distribute information. Sometimes, you want to let people know that tomorrow is doughnut day, and so you might
send out a short email such as “Hello Everyone! Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is doughnut day!” Such an email is appropriate because
everyone knows what doughnut day means—Joan in marketing will be bringing in some yummy doughnuts to share. And it’s
probably okay to be that informal because it’s also not an official event that requires action on the employees’ parts. But what if tomorrow is the
annual blood drive? That event may require more explanation, especially since new employees (hired since the last blood drive) may not be
aware of the company’s long standing support of the local blood bank. It may also be nice to remind everyone of the positive impact this event
has on the local community and how Roger, from Accounts, has a daughter who has a health condition that frequently requires blood
transfusions (assuming Roger is okay with sharing that personal information). On more than one occasion, the local blood bank has been
able to provide that blood because the company’s support helps to make sure they have the resources they need on hand.
Such an email or memo would first start with the announcement of this year’s blood drive, a reminder to drink a lot of water and eat a meal
before donating, and then name the date, time, and place. Then the memo/email might move into some of the history of the blood drive at the
company and present the facts about last year’s effort—the number of participants and pints collected. And then end with “I encourage
everyone who is able to show up to support the blood drive.” This common type of email/memo is an
informational email/memo. A directive is a little different, and it has a little different organization. The directive is not a piece of general information
but, as its title makes clear, directions that direct readers to follow a particular procedure or policy. Unlike the general information memo, a directive
generally starts with the rationale behind the directive so that people feel that it is a reasonable request, and also to help people
remember it. It then ends by stating the policy or procedure that readers are directed to follow. For example, let’s say that for security reasons, the
janitorial staff will no longer be allowed access to employee offices. Instead, employees will put their trash cans outside their offices on Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays for the janitorial staff to empty. Employees will then put their trash cans back in their offices the following morning. This is
a new practice, so you want to issue a directive. First, you explain the situation. You don’t want to give too many details because you don’t want to
encourage similar incidents, and you don’t want to cast suspicion on any particular employees, but you do want to provide enough details so that
employees understand the rationale behind this policy. You might write that in the past two weeks, a few employees have entered their offices in the
mornings to find their computers on. A forensic investigation confirms that the computers were tampered with. As an extra precaution, the
janitorial staff will no longer have access to the employee offices. This step is taken to help narrow down who might be responsible for these
incidents. At this point, it is not clear if any sensitive information was stolen, but you will let the employees know as soon as any information
becomes available. You might also ask everyone to change his or her passwords now for extra security and remember not to leave passwords
written down and lying around their computers. You end with the directive: effective immediately, employees are directed to place their trash bins
outside their office doors on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 5pm. The bins are to be put back in the offices on the following
business morning. The janitorial staff will no longer enter your offices to empty your trash. So that’s it. A directive is different from a general
information memo in that it involves a policy or procedure, and it generally starts by providing an explanation and ending with the new policy or
procedure that is being implemented.

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